India still scarred a year after Modi’s demonetization move

Vasant Atakari runs a small stall in the historic Fort area of south Mumbai – the source of livelihood that has sustained the past three generations of his family. Today, he is worried about the future of his business: selling fabrics for suits and other items of clothing in the post-demonetisation age does not guarantee food on the table.

“After demonetisation, we’ve had so many problems,” he says. “I used to sell 8,000 to 10,000 rupees a day of material. But now it’s just 1,000 rupees to 5,000 rupees a day. Sometimes I don’t even have money to eat.”

It is almost a year since India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced a shock move to ban most of the cash in circulation.

There remains a significant level of scepticism from some quarters about how successful demonetisation has been.

While the intended effect was to weed out illegal money flows, many businesses are still suffering as a result of the measure, which has also slowed the pace of economic growth.